Screen Printing: At Last!

Hooray hooray! After may failed attempts at screen printing through last year, I have finally conquered it!

...and i have no idea what to do with these eco shopping bags now! I'm thinking to give them away free to people who spend over £20 (not including P&P!) in one of my stores and at Winchester in July.

The brown bag was a (very bad) tester for the bags i'll be using at the fair to those who buy something at my stall (free of course!). I'll get and print some smaller ones too :)

I can't believe it's nearly time for Cambridge Handm@de already :o Blackberry Crafts will be there, so be sure to stop off and buy some wonderful hand knit fingerless gloves! Spring may be here, but there's still a nip about!

Good luck to everyone taking part! If last years oxford is anything to go by, it should be awesome!

Skirt To Pouch In About An Hour.

Lately, I've been inspired to recycle old clothes and either make them into something I would wear again or use the fabric to make something else. This isn't limited to the clothes I own, either. I like to go into the local charity shops and buy unwanted garments I can reuse for projects.

Take this skirt for example:

This cost me £3.20. You may be forgiven for thinking this is a lot, but when compared to say, Hobbycraft which do nice cotton prints for £5 per meter and up, it doesn't seem so bad. That and you're giving to charity and recycling. The fabric is nice quality too (plus, I salvaged the zip :D).

So, it took about half an hour to rip the three panels out, along with the zip. The rest of the time was the usual cutting, pinning pressing and sewing. Which brings me to the final product:

A snazzy pouch for my netbook cables and mouse to go into :D This will be so useful on holiday :)

I have loads left over which I'm hoping to use when I come home for new coin purse designs, along with some other charity shop finds which are waiting to be used!
So next time you go past a charity shop, think of all the things you could do with the fabric in there :)

Old WIPs...

Its been a while since I've actually posted any projects I'm working on. Sorry, this is going to be a big post to make up for all the lost time :o

First up though, in light of my resolution to make TomatoTea more successful this year I have rearranged my bedroom to be more productive.

Uh, no before shot. I didn't think I'd blog about it to be honest! And the second picture is terrible, my room is quite dark, so it's hard to get the exposure right :( But you get the idea.

So on to the projects.

The majority are half made bags; knitted, crocheted and waiting for some lovely linning :) Heres some thumbs from Flickr:

I've also got 'Thermal' on the needles... and the knit picks gloss is staining them XD. Admittedly, I haven't got far with that one but I'm taking it to New Zealand in the hopes of getting it done.

Yes. That's right. DONE.

I just wish I could knit on the plane... I have 16+ hours to kill on the way there and back ;_;

Also, I'm in the middle of crocheting some baskets for my new 'Studio' (can I call it that if I sleep in there? XD). Parcel string is dead hard on the hands though. I need to work out if I'm making the most of the string by crocheting in the round (as shown) or if its more 'economical' to crochet back and forth. I'll get back to you guys on that one at a later date!

I think thats enough of an update for now.

Oh, and Happy New Year :)

OKAY! Quick post before i start work :)

I have never been so busy in my life. My goodness i'm glad the bookshop have now taken me on full-time now, even if it is only up until the new year. I'll be earning more because a) i'm doing a few more hours and b) because im not working 2 jobs i won't get taxed 22% and c) i should technically get my tax back that i paid last month... and possibly this month which will be like £300.

That's disgusting isn't it? Getting taxed 22% just because I had to work two jobs because i couldn't get any extra hours because of this whole recession business. It wasn't fair. I seriously think the hours should be added up from the two jobs and treated like one job. Besides, employers prefer part timers because they are cheaper :/

BAH!

Anyhoo. Besides working in shops, i have also been making stuff. Here's a quick preview of one of the many things i have been doing...

I'll be back later to tell you more. But for now, i need to get ready to go to work :o

Hope everyone is well!

Bags of Fun

Busy at last :)

Rouge Bleu is already avaliable over on Etsy and Coccinelle Verte will be available for sale on Monday (2008/06/09)

I loved making these and already have a stash of yarn and fabrics to make more :)

I'm also in the process of designing crocheted purses :D The yarn used would be regualr DK or aran weight and they would be lined as the bags have ^_^

I also invested in some buttons to sell on Etsy. I'm a little nervous about selling them as i worked out my profit margin would be small but they are lovely and i will be using a couple for my own projects too :)

Still looking for more work. Ugh. 12 hours just isn't enough... not that i would want to work full time in retail, but beggars can't be choosers :/